Sing Out, Country Girl

by Sofia Aguilar

Part of LM Voices' Tiny Review series

For many, the culture and life of the American Southwest—from country music to cowboy fashion to rugged desert landscapes—has long been considered an emblem of whiteness and more specifically, of white masculinity. In her debut collection of poetry The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket, Kinsale Drake reclaims these symbols as important aspects of her Diné heritage, family, and birthright, while also crafting a parallel coming-of-age narrative that captures what it’s like to find yourself and drink a Baja Blast with your friends.  

Throughout the collection, Drake is unabashed and bold, both in how she structures her poems visually on the page and what she’s actually saying. Every word feels intentionally chosen and phrases and images, no matter how seemingly disparate, flow and pair together in a straight seam. This is present in poems like “August” where she creates connections between harvest and motherhood: “Umbilical cords / Planting season. I want / to roll in the mud and be a mother.”

There’s also a musicality to how she phrases her thoughts, which reflects the collection’s major theme of country music and its importance to Southwest identity. Throughout, she peppers in references to guitars, orchestras, strumming, sound, “our grandparents’ blues,” beat stomping, and dancing. There are poems presented as song including “NDN Heartbreak Song” and “Coming-of-age song.” But even outside of these pieces, as early as the opening poem, she invokes the traditions of country music in her turns of phrase—slow drawls, quick on beat, fast movement on tip-toe—so much so that every line seems to carry that characteristic country twang many of us know.  

At the same time, Drake is well aware of stereotypes attached to indigenous peoples and what they’re expected to write about, like the “eco-NDN” she name-drops as someone who loves the land. While she does in fact write about the land and her relationship with it as a Diné country girl, she also resists preconceived notions of what it means to be Native, simply by writing as herself. From nights at Taco Bell to watching her mother do the line dance to embracing her true emo self, she proves that being a Southwest, country-loving cowgirl isn’t a different take on Native identity—it is Native identity. Her existence isn’t subversive—it simply is.

This collection is a joyous exploration of what it means to be Diné, to be the daughter of powerful women who’ve come before you, to grow up loved and still longing, and to call the Southwest home. If you think you know country, or even themes of colonization, reclamation, womanhood, and identity, The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket offers a new song for all of us to sing without shame.

Sofía Aguilar is a queer Chicana author, editor, and library professional based in Los Angeles.

Purchase The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket on Bookshop.org and support LibroMobile!